Storms stole special seconds from Stephen F. Austin.
Many changes had occurred since the last time we were able to go to a state park. Coronavirus had peaked when all operations were shut down and a shelter-in-place was put into effect. It had been over 3 weeks (23 days to be exact) since Kaylee and I were able to enjoy some outdoors. But not all was boring. In the meantime, we devised a workout routine to get us some exercise which included walking around local parks here in Bryan/College Station, playing our favorite sport (baseball or softball whichever way you want to look at it), along with basketball and tennis, and of course some actual rudimentary workouts that we thought we could do easily. Never had we been so wrong in our lives. Some of the workouts we devised were tough for two people who hadn’t had a consistent workout routine in 3-4 years. Nevertheless, we powered through them since we were getting fat. You may also notice my hair looks a little different since Lake Somerville; I made the mistake of letting Kaylee cut it. She tried her best and all-in-all, it wasn’t terrible. Just not good.
That wasn’t the only change that had transpired. In the gap while the parks were closed, we hatched our idea of getting our Costa sunglasses (still waiting to hear back on that sponsorship). We picked out the style we wanted to match in and they came in a few days later. With excitement, we couldn’t wait to try them out on our first state park. On April 25, we drove down to San Felipe, TX, a little town on the Brazos River between College Station and Houston, and hit up Stephen F. Austin State Park.
Texas Parks and Wildlife had implemented some regulations upon reopening the state parks. First and foremost, everyone had to wear face masks. There was also a limit on the amount of people who could be in a single party. Lastly, the parks were for day use only, no overnight staying and you had to make reservations before coming to the parks. There were also limits on the total number of visitors within the park to ensure staying within social distancing standards.
Our face masks and sunglasses were at the ready and we set off to our first hike at Stephen F. Austin… the bathroom. I had drank a large amount of water before we had left (hydrate or die-drate, am I right?) and desperately had to relieve my bladder. After this, Kaylee and I enjoyed a nice sack lunch under the trees in the picnic area at the front of the park. We discussed what we wanted to see and what trails we were going to walk. The next adventure we went on was to the bottomlands on the Brazos River. Although there was no grand view or site on this trial, the landscape that surrounded us was beautiful. Large oak trees rising high above us to give us shade, the underbrush green as it could be. We took in the surroundings, and Kaylee put her photography skills to use while we continued down the trail. It was actually a series of trails that we walked and totaled a little less than a mile and a half to get through the mixed hardwood/upland forest in the bottomlands.
Without warning, clouds gathered and distant thunder rumbled low. I checked the radar on my phone which indicated there were a series of small thunderstorms headed in our direction. This left Kaylee and me with about an hour before the storm cells reached us. We were going to squeeze every last second out of this trip.
On the way out of the bottomlands trails, there was a fallen tree, and I had an idea to take some pictures on it since it was lying above the ground. Besides, we needed more face mask pictures. We set up the camera and decided that it would be best if I were the one to start the self-timer since I can jump higher and actually get up onto the log and into position before the 10 second window closed. We got a few pictures on the log and continued down the trail and back to the car. There was still one more spot we had to get to before the rain began to fall.
We hopped out of the car at the trailhead and the sky became darker with every fleeting minute. Kaylee and I are big Brooklyn Nine-Nine fans (NINE-NINE!!!), and this felt like a ticking time bomb for us to get in and get out. We needed to be like the fictional squad of the fictional NYPD precinct, get the job done and have fun while doing it. As we walked down to the last destination, sprinkles hit us from above and we knew we were running out of time. Our steps lengthened and our breath shortened as we booked it down the path. We reached our destination. When I first saw what it was on the ‘Points of Interest’ section of the trails map for Stephen F. Austin State Park, I was unexpectant of what it would really be like in real life. It was a scenic overlook on the Brazos River in the far northeast corner of the park. What I was expecting: a small flat on the riverbank that allowed you to see the river up close. What it actually was: a spot on a sandy bluff 15 feet above the river with views both down and upriver unobstructed by man made structures or natural limitations. It was way more than I thought, and as we discussed before, low expectations can be everything. Even if the overlook on the Brazos wasn’t as good as I am making it out to be, the impression it left on me was that it blew me and my expectations out of the water (river puns).
At this point, the storms were nearing us and the rain was steadily becoming a bit more heavy. We decided to make it a shorter trip than anticipated and headed back. The thunder still rolled and the rain fell thicker, but Stephen F. Austin, though small in size, was big in natural beauty.
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